Originally posted by the Institute for Justice. For media inquiries, please contact Dan King, Assistant Director of Media Relations, at dking@ij.org.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.—A nearly decade long legal fight from two Nashville home-based business owners has concluded with the city being required to treat home businesses fairly, allowing all of them to serve the same number of customers per day and not be subject to invasive demands for customer records, the same as other home-based businesses. Following a ruling from the Tennessee Court of Appeals that the city had “no rational reason for the difference in treatment that is relevant to the purpose of the law,” a Davidson County Court issued the final ruling declaring that the business owners’ right to equal protection were violated by the unequal treatment and placing a permanent injunction against enforcing rules that limited some businesses to six customers per day while allowing others to serve 12.
The case from recording studio owner Lij Shaw and hairstylist Pat Raynor, represented by the Institute for Justice (IJ) and the Beacon Center of Tennessee, was filed in 2017 as a challenge to the city’s restriction on them serving any customers at home. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nashville permitted Lij and Pat to have six client visits a day but other home-based businesses were allowed to have double (or more) clients, under less onerous regulations, which Lij and Pat challenged as an equal protection violation. In 2022, the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled the case challenging the new regulations could continue. After a further setback at chancery court, Lij and Pat won in a unanimous appeals court decision which the city chose not to appeal to the Supreme Court.
“It never made sense why my home recording studio could not have as many customers as a home daycare or short-term rental,” said Lij. “Home studios have always been a critical part of the Nashville music scene because of the economics for new and up-and-coming artists. This awesome victory will help music made by people, together, in Music City, keeping creativity alive.”
“I need to work from home because, at my age, I can only work part time,” said Pat. “I could never afford to pay my mortgage and the cost of renting salon space working only part time. Working from home allows me to keep working and stay in my home. Our win means that other people—young and old—who want to work can work from home if they need.”
“The Tennessee Constitution protects Lij’s and Pat’s right to use their homes to earn an honest living,” IJ Senior Attorney Paul Avelar said. “Zoning shouldn’t be used to shut down home-based businesses that don’t harm anyone. But zoning laws across the county continue ban home-bases businesses for no good reason and IJ, though our Zoning Justice Project, will continue to challenge those laws.”
